<trim>Also in play: how many customers out there will insist on "flying on anything but a Musk rocket" (which is basically what happened with the first batch of Kuiper launches).
Kuiper is strange. They booked launches from everybody in order to meet the requirement for 1618 satellites by mid-2026 and 3238 by 2030, and those bookings appeared to be based on the promised launch schedules for the then-unflown Arianne 6, New Glenn, and Vulcan, plus the (then) nine Atlas V. They even threw in three Falcon 9 contracts, apparently to make up the last numbers. This entire house of cards is tumbling down, so it's hard to know what will actually happen. The good news for ULA is that Vulcan is ahead of the other two. The bad news is that Kuiper is apparently not ready to launch at all. If the satellites were ready they would have started launching on Atlas starting any time after February 2024.
What we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.
Quote from: meekGee on 12/21/2024 07:41 pmWhat we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.The manifest appears to break into three types: DoD Dream Chaser KuiperI think it's difficult to generalize from these.
First there are three other medium launchers in development in the US.- NGIS Antares 330/ Firefly MLV - Rocketlab Neutron - Relativity Terran R.All these three launchers could also provide some of the launch requirements for the US DoD/government.So instead of ULA being a single provider with Atlas V and Delta IV (and Delta II) before SpaceX entered the market. You could be looking at a market with six launch service providers (NSSL Lane1). ULA Vulcan; SpaceX Falcon9 & Starship, Blue Origin New Glenn, and the above three. So in this context ULV Vulcain becomes even less relevent.
Quote from: DanClemmensen on 12/21/2024 08:54 pmQuote from: meekGee on 12/21/2024 07:41 pmWhat we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.The manifest appears to break into three types: DoD Dream Chaser KuiperI think it's difficult to generalize from these.Well we can guess a bit For Kuiper ULA was not the big boy in the room, and the big boy does have an alternate in the works that at some point should be cheaper. Also, JB is no slouch when it comes to negotiating. So my money is on Kuiper being able to walk away with barely any liability.DOD - others here know better, but for now my money is on the contracts not being moved.DC - who knows. Will they fly? Will they have a market? But they're likely the smallest of the three.
Quote from: Rik ISS-fan on 12/21/2024 08:49 pmFirst there are three other medium launchers in development in the US.- NGIS Antares 330/ Firefly MLV - Rocketlab Neutron - Relativity Terran R.All these three launchers could also provide some of the launch requirements for the US DoD/government.So instead of ULA being a single provider with Atlas V and Delta IV (and Delta II) before SpaceX entered the market. You could be looking at a market with six launch service providers (NSSL Lane1). ULA Vulcan; SpaceX Falcon9 & Starship, Blue Origin New Glenn, and the above three. So in this context ULV Vulcain becomes even less relevent.Stoke Space's Nova is another medium launcher in development in the US that may compete for NSSL lane 1. So Vulcan is competing in a market with about seven launch service providers.
If ULA has a future, its parents wouldn't have been trying to sell it off AND having a hard time finding a buyer.Also whether the "anything but Musk" segment can survive the next administration is an open question, nobody has been thinking about this. Everybody is focused on SLS even though Musk has never said anything bad about it, but he has repeatedly said ULA is a waste of taxpayer money.
However, in the space industry (which is far smaller in dollar value than my examples above), it is harder to get a read, as some purchasing decisions are political, some are backed by a dislike of a competitor's CEO, some are backed almost as a hobby (perceptually) by rich billionaires.
Quote from: thespacecow on 12/22/2024 03:09 amIf ULA has a future, its parents wouldn't have been trying to sell it off AND having a hard time finding a buyer.Also whether the "anything but Musk" segment can survive the next administration is an open question, nobody has been thinking about this. Everybody is focused on SLS even though Musk has never said anything bad about it, but he has repeatedly said ULA is a waste of taxpayer money.For DoD, USG, NASA and Space Force contracts, there will always be a "redundant" (non SpaceX) vendor. 10 years from now, with hindsight, we will all say "it was obvious it was going to be X"In many other industries, it is relatively more straightforward to do future predictions. Intel's demise (or troubles, more accurately) were predicted nearly 15 years ago, when they stopped heavy investments into fabs. I can tell you now that GM, Ford and Stellanis will be a shell of themselves in the 2030s due to their overreliance on trucks, the US market, their excessive labor costs, and their failure in the EV and PHEV market.However, in the space industry (which is far smaller in dollar value than my examples above), it is harder to get a read, as some purchasing decisions are political, some are backed by a dislike of a competitor's CEO, some are backed almost as a hobby (perceptually) by rich billionaires. In addition, the space industry analysis suffers a lot from boosterism and anti-boosterism, which shows in emotional words inserted in analytical documents (e.g "oligarch")Based on the feedback given so far, most contributors think ULA is the losing horse, but one contributor thinks that they have something that allowed them to beat Blue Orgin in the NSSL competition.